Shakespeare Isn't P.C. (Thought Police Rewrite Textbooks)

NewMax.Com ^ | Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2003 | staff writer

[yankeedame]

How the Thought Police Rewrite Textbooks and America's History

NewsMax.com Wires

Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2003

MIAMI – Diane Ravitch hammers away and hammers away, and even a reader going into her book with a healthy dose of skepticism comes away with the conviction that the "language police" must be fired.

It's hard to believe when she says guidelines by the Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley textbook publishers demand that people "over the age of 65 must be fully represented in text and illustrations; there must be a larger number of older women than older men, because 55 percent of older persons are women."

But the book "The Language Police" is so relentless and so well-documented that after a while you have to believe.

Ravitch says there is an institutionalized system among the four major book publishers - two U.S.-owned, one Dutch and one British - to keep anything the least bit offensive out of textbooks produced for kindergartners through 12th graders.

The same is true for the producers of tests.

Some of the examples are not only appalling, they're funny, including:

-"Adam and Eve," should be replaced with "Eve and Adam" to demonstrate that males do not take priority over females.

-"Birth defect" should be replaced with "people with congenital disabilities."

-"Busboy" should be replaced with "dining room attendant."

-"Cowgirl" and "cowboy" should be replaced with "cowhand."

-"Deaf-mute" should be replaced by "person who can't hear or speak."

-"Huts" is branded as ethnocentric and should be replaced with small houses.

-"Majority group" is banned as offensive reference to cultural difference.

-Dinosaurs are banned because they evoke the subject of evolution.

And on it goes.

Works of literature written before 1970 are almost always taboo because they are bound to have something politically incorrect in them.

Shakespeare Isn't P.C.

Goodbye Mark Twain, goodbye Ernest Hemingway, goodbye Chaucer and goodbye Shakespeare, to mention only a handful....

[Gorzaloon]

Works of literature written before 1970 are almost always taboo because they are bound to have something politically incorrect in them.

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[goldstategop]

Liberals want a bland culture. They want a culture as schoolmarmish and humorless as they are.

[TomGuy]

-"Cowgirl" and "cowboy" should be replaced with "cowhand."

Cowhand? What about the bull. The list is full of bull--and the bull's by-product.

[ClearCase_guy]

So, there I was working on a crossword puzzle, and Number 9 down is "person who can't hear or speak". I'm thinking it will be an 8-letter word, but then I realize that the answer will be "person who can't hear or speak". Gee, not as challenging as they used to be.

[jjm2111]

Do we really have to excerpt NEWSMAX?

[Missus]

It's also a very good reason to teach at home using REAL books instead of textbooks, and to stage a conservative, non-PC, non-revisionist coup of the local school board.

Regards

[jjm2111]

You linked a popup ad, BTW.

[pogo101]

O Brave New World! I'll get the book bonfire ready for the libs.

[GSWarrior]

Your link brings up a Newsmax advertisement. Rest of the story is not there.

[HenryLeeII]

Well, I think 'Eve and Adam' should be replaced by 'Adam and Eve' to show that women don't take precedence over men, and 'people who can't hear or speak' should be replaced by something less awkward, such as 'deaf-mute. Also, the term 'politically correct' should be replaced by something more accurately descriptive, such as 'immoral fascist simpleton.'

[KarlInOhio]

"Cowgirl" and "cowboy" should be replaced with "cowhand."

Cowhand is offensive to those "people with congenital disabilities" who were born without arms.

[LiberalSlayer99]

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Awesome choice for a Shakespeare quote. I was thinking of a good Shakespeare quote...but the one you picked was ideal! I think it's time to read MacBeth again!

[LiberalSlayer99]

It's also a very good reason to teach at home using REAL books instead of textbooks, and to stage a conservative, non-PC, non-revisionist coup of the local school board.

Fortunately, I'm sending my son to a private school where he'll read classic literature, and where the term "well-rounded education" doesn't include political correct revisionism. I've given up on the public school system.

[TomGuy]

"Cowgirl" and "cowboy" should be replaced with "cowhand."

Cowhand is offensive to those "people with congenital disabilities" who were born without arms.

It just emphasizes how stupid these revisionists are---but...

--who appointed them to be the moral revisionists of literature?

--how do they get away with intimidating publishers to make the changes they want?

[yankeedame]

You linked a popup ad, BTW.

LOL! Hey, tanks for the heads-up, but ,heck, what can I say? When I mess up I don't go half way!

Oh, and the reason I posted only part of the article is b/c the article itself is somewhat long.So I thought I'd error on the side of causion.

But if anyone wants to check out the complete article, click here: Shakespeare Isn't P.C.

[Sloth]

-"Huts" is branded as ethnocentric and should be replaced with small houses.

[Paleo Conservative]

The bowdlerizers strike again.

[onedoug]

Knock,
knock! Who's there, in the other devil's
name? Faith, here's an equivocator, that could
swear in both the scales against either scale;
who committed treason enough for God's sake,
yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come
in, equivocator.

[Gorzaloon]

It's also a very good reason to teach at home using REAL books instead of textbooks, and to stage a conservative, non-PC, non-revisionist coup of the local school board.

Is that another way of taking arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end(ing) them? :-)